Pregnant Serena Williams Poses Nude For Vanity Fair Cover Shoot

Tennis star, Serena Williams has revealed that she hopes to be back on the court as early as January as she prepares to become a mother for the first time.

The Wimbledon champion shares her plans for her sporting future in a new interview with Vanity Fair as she poses in a very risque shoot.

At 35 years old, the pregnant Williams stuns on the cover of the August issue in a striking portrait photographed by longtime collaborator Annie Leibovitz, who first shot Williams, alongside her sister Venus, when she was 16 years old.

Speaking of he career plans the sporting legend says: ‘I don’t think my story is over yet,’ and reveals her plans to be back on the court as soon as the new year after she delivers her first child this fall and weds fiancé and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.

Williams recalls first learning she was pregnant, much to her surprise, after feeling physically different roughly a week before the beginning of the Australian Open in January this year.

At the suggestion of her friend Jessica Steindorff, who suspected it was not merely her hormones acting up, Williams relented and let Jessica buy her a pregnancy kit.

Williams explains: ‘I’ll take it just because (a) to prove you wrong and (b) because it’s fun, whatever. It’s like a joke. Why not?’

After taking the test, she forgot about it, thinking it impossible that it could be positive.

When she finally checked the results, she says she ‘did a double take and my heart dropped. Like literally it dropped.’

Her first thought: ‘Oh my God, this can’t be—I’ve got to play a tournament. How am I going to play the Australian Open? I had planned on winning Wimbledon (her third straight) this year.’

To further convince her of the reality, Jessica purchased five more test kits; all proved positive.

After discovering she was pregnant, Williams called Ohanian and, without providing a reason, told him to fly to Melbourne earlier than previously planned.

Ohanian, thinking it was likely health-related, immediately got a flight out of San Francisco. When Williams saw him, she wordlessly handed him a paper bag containing the six positive pregnant tests: Ohanian was as shocked as she had been.

Now, a little more than six months pregnant, she is facing the reality that she is indeed having a baby with her soon-to-be husband. ‘It just doesn’t seem real. I don’t know why. Am I having a baby?’ she says.